New hot rod stamps cool but won't get mail delivered faster

DETROIT (June 10, 2014) — The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) often uses its stamps as canvases — little, tiny canvases — upon which our national triumphs both past and present are celebrated.

From time to time cars show up. Recently, it was muscle cars; now, hot rods get their turn under the spotlight.

The latest commemorative “forever” stamps feature a pair of clean, classic 1932 Ford highboys. There’s none of that overdone “Eliminator” nonsense here—just a couple of rods, one black with old-school flames, one red.

Collector car scene fixture and Meguiar’s Inc. President Barry Meguiar was at the launch.

“With an estimated 12 million hot rodders in America today, I applaud the Postal Service for recognizing that hot rods will forever be a symbol of our American culture,” he said.

We’ll join in the applause.

The stamps were designed by Derry Noyes but digitally executed by John Mattos, who has some other work for the USPS to his credit. Oddly enough, that includes a “Fidel of Dreams” poster that the author once had taped to his bedroom door for roughly a decade and a half. Coincidence? Very probably.

In its promo for the stamps on its website, the USPS said it is celebrating “hot rods — the fast, powerful vehicles that thrill-seeking enthusiasts have been modifying for nearly a century — with two eye-popping stamps.

Hot rodding first took hold in the 1920s, when young men began modifying cars. Aficionados souped up engines, lowered chassis, chopped bodies, and cut excess weight, to create fierce machines unlike anything that had rolled off assembly lines.

“The Ford Model T and the Ford Model A were popular among early hot rodders, but the 1932 Ford roadster or ‘Deuce,’ with its graceful body shape and distinctive grille, was considered the hottest of them all.”

Three years ago, the USPS issued 50 million First-Class Mail Forever stamps depicting Ray Harroun driving his Marmom Wasp to victory in the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911.

You can buy the stamps, as well as art prints and other assorted collectable goodies, at USPS.com.

Or your local post office — remember that place?

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This report appeared on autoweek.com, the website of Autoweek magazine, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.